Fairytale
by Guile
Summary: It was like a fairytale. Except with blood, and evil elves, and the Black Swordsman, and...


Fable  
There once was a girl named Jill.

A/N: Spoilers, I guess, for anime-only viewers. A sort of epilogue to the Retribution: Lost Children arc. A friend of mine wanted something Berserk with a fairytale spin: this was the best I could do.

- - -

Jill was, the general consensus of the village said, to put it kindly, _strange_.

Well, it's no wonder, the adults told themselves, after being taken by that murderous Swordsman into the elf-infested Misty Valley. She came back practically covered in blood. Who _knows_ what he did to her, what he made her do, they clucked. It's only natural that she be a little strange after something like that!

The children - what children remained after the terrible nights of fire and elves - were just _sure_ that she had some exciting stories about Misty Valley, and she wouldn't tell them. After all, since Jill had returned from that place, the mist had burned away. It was hardly mysterious now; they couldn't even give it an interesting name like Misty Valley. It was just the Valley, now.

The only child who didn't clamor after her for stories was the boy named Jack who lived at the Church these days, ever since the Swordsman came. But then, the rest of the children thought Jack was a little strange, too.

It was days before she stopped spending the entire day climbing trees. And even after that, she was always focused on the sky, her eyes far away, and at times her feet hardly seemed to touch the ground. It was like she was hardly there at all.

Sometime during these days after the Swordsman came, Jack had taken to following Jill everywhere, and she let him do so. If you found one, you could be sure that the other wasn't far away. The other children left them to their own devices, and they were content.

- - -

In the weeks that followed, the little town began hearing rumors of war with Kushan and the White Hawk, the divine savior of Midland. The tales were on everyone's lips:

Nosferatu Zodd, that terrible, immortal man who haunted the battlegrounds, had joined with the Hawks. The Moonlight Knight, Locus, had signed under the Hawk banner. Brunheld, called Dragon's Breath, had given the Hawk his fealty. Even demons and beast-men and mis-formed things came to Griffith's banner, and pledged loyalty. Griffith had soundly defeated the Kushan army. Griffith rode upon a great winged beast, the likes of which had never been seen before. Griffith was a saint, a savior, an angel, a God.

Jill ignored this talk entirely. Instead, she tracked down sightings of the demonic Black Swordsman with a single-minded drive, interviewing travelers, pinning down tales, trying to sift fact from rumor. A provincial Lord died at the hands of the Black Swordsman. The Black Swordsman was spotted in the same area as a satanic cult. The Black Swordsman saved a witch from burning. The Black Swordsman was sighted at the same time a monstrous mist descended on the Vendemion estate. The Black Swordsman killed the Great Angel, Mozgus. The Black Swordsman has a familiar, a child with monkey-like features. The commander of the Holy Iron Chain Knights and her aide-de-camp were seen following at his heels like faithful dogs. The Black Swordsman has an apprentice in the dark arts, a witch in a pointed hat. The Black Swordsman is an enemy of the Kushan - no, he's on their payroll - no, he's really the Kushan Emperor himself, travelling the world incognito. The Black Swordsman isn't human - a monster - the devil in human form. And so on, and so on, each tale more outlandish than the last, but Jill recorded each one faithfully, committing it to memory.

Unhealthy, they called it. Not that anyone cared enough to put an end to it, least of all the girl's father, who was far more interested in drinking himself blind.

- - -

Months passed, and seasons turned, and the horrors of Misty Valley faded in people's memories. Just another terrible tale, in a time when there were many such stories. The girl named Jill reached the age when many girls in her village were married. But she chose no one, and remained alone. Just another queer act of the type the village had come to expect from her. Jack, her little follower - not quite so little, now, but follower still - likewise did not participate in the courtship games as boys of his age were expected to do. But then, Jack's parents were long past caring if their child was a disappointment or not; death will do that to people.

- - -

Years passed, as they tend to do. The girl ripened into a young woman, lovely and fey. And one day, news of the outside world simply stopped coming. No word of the Black Swordsman, or the White Hawk, or of anything. It all simply vanished, leaving quiet behind. A week later, Jack and Jill asked the clergyman of the tiny chapel in town to witness their vows. When asked why the wished to be married, they just smiled.


End file.
